


Heart Heart Head

by isawrightless



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:53:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawrightless/pseuds/isawrightless
Summary: when he left.





	

set before advent children.

\-----

He takes a deep breath because twenty minutes from now he will break their hearts, her heart, and he will go away. He takes a deep breath and looks around the place he calls home, not ready at all to leave it behind him but the pain in his arm is a constant reminder that he doesn't really have a choice. What good is he dead? He resists the urge to sit on the couch, the one he bought with her when they were still thinking about opening a bar again, the one where he spent more nights than he can count watching bad tv and running his fingers through her hair as she rested her head on his lap and fell asleep halfway through a movie, tired from a busy day. This is way harder than it should be, and maybe a couch shouldn't matter as much, but like every wounded dog he's got a favorite spot, a safe haven, and this couch means something.

He doesn't move for a while, he can't, not when it seems like all the rot and dirt and poison from his sins are clinging to his skin, oozing blackness and pus and blood and nothingness and everything. He's so lost, let him die, let him suffer, he deserves it, doesn't he? His mind is where happiness comes to wither and the rest of the world slowly fades in and out and he can't focus on anything but the sharp, dull pain. He's leaving. He's dying. He can't die here, he can't die in front of the kids, he can't let them see that, he can't let her see that. He's got a plan, and it's all right, it's fine. It will work out okay.

Unable to help himself, he goes into the children's room first. It's quiet, dark. Marlene is sleeping curled into a ball, tucked in and almost disappearing under the thick covers. He caresses the top of her head with all the care in the world not to wake her, and smiles when she scrunches up her face, lost in a dream.

Denzel, however, has his right hand pressed against his forehead, the white piece of cloth used to soothe a bit of his ache has fallen next to his face on the pillow. For just one tiny second, Cloud closes his eyes, and lets the guilt for not having an answer, for not having a cure, wash over him, burn him from the inside. Then, with a delicacy he reserves just for them, his family, he holds Denzel's wrist and brings his right arm down. The boy grimaces and shifts, but doesn't wake up. Cloud takes the cloth in his hand, stares at it for a moment, and covers the boy's forehead with it again.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and there's a lot more to say, but that's all he can manage. It's true, though, how sorry he is and all the pain in the world will never be enough to make up for all of this.

He exists the room, and like a parent, wishes he could somehow know everything.

Heading towards her room, their room (well, it used to be. It used to be until he went and broke her trust and started sleeping in his office because he didn't know how to face the shame of getting himself sick instead of finding the solution like he promised to, he didn't know how to sleep next to her and pretend he wasn't failing her, the kids, pretend he had a lifetime of happiness and comfort waiting for him when he wouldn't last the year), is not the plan. He can't see her; if he sees her all of this goes to hell and she'll wait for him and be understanding and try to soothe everything away, she'll be amazing and he'll disappoint her and he can't look at her and think about bad tv movies and falling asleep on the couch together and making plans for the kids and for their home, no, he can't and faking it wouldn't be fair to her, to what she worked so hard to build for them, but the minute his throughts stop swirling around his brain, he finds himself standing inside the bedroom, doing exactly what he said he couldn't: watching as she sleeps soundly, her dark hair all over the white, soft pillow, her bangs covering her eyes.

When he was a fourteen year old boy, he used to think she couldn't be real, that she had to be made of something else because seeing her walk past him always left him feeling out of himself. It was harmless, kid logic that carried on for all these years, and he still thinks of her as made of something else, as unreal, but she's warm and he knows this, like he knows she hates hot days but can only shower with hot water because it clears her mind after a hard day, he knows her favorite books and songs and the way she likes her coffee. He knows her and she's real and he's dying, how stupid is that?

He wants to move forward and wake her but he goes to the door instead, ready to leave.

"Cloud?" he stops, straightens his shoulders.

He's not sure he's breathing when he turns to face her.

"Is everything okay?" she asks, voice all soft and drowsy, her hair's a mess, and she's squinting, looking at him and then at the clock on the night stand. 5:56 AM. "Are the kids all right? Denzel?"

There's that guilt, again, burning him from inside out.

"They're fine, go back to sleep," he doesn't mean to sound cold, he doesn't want to hurt her any longer, but he can't say it any other way, he's too scared, too damaged. If he had his way, he'd tell her everything, he'd call her Teef because no one really calls her that besides him, it's their thing, he'd rip off the cloth covering his arm and show her that damned stain, and she'd tell him they could win this, even if it was a lie. She'd make him rise instead of letting him fade away.

She'd be his salvation.

"It's almost six...why are you up so early?"

"I'm leaving," he blurts out, wincing the second he realizes how much he hates that word.

"Leaving?" she sits up now, her hands on the covers as if she's ready to jump out of bed.

"Yeah," he swallows the lump on his throat, afraid he's going to choke on his next words. "There's a delivery for Junon this morning, I can't be late."

"Oh," she relaxes. "Okay, be careful then."

"Tifa..." he starts, and she looks at him, scans him, knows him too well.

"Yeah?"

"It's nothing..." he turns around, hand on the doorknob.

"Come back soon," she pleads.

He nods (liar), wishing he could take them back to the start, and then he's gone.

Because sick, lost dogs seek comfort in forsaken places.

He fades away.


End file.
